【推荐1】They say procrastination (拖延) is the thief of time—actually deadlines are. New research from the University of Otago has found that if you want someone to help you out with something, it is best not to set a deadline at all. But if you do set a deadline, make it short.

Professor Stephen Knowles and his co-authors tested the effect of deadline length on task completion for their research published in Economic Inquiry. Participants were invited to complete an online survey concerning a charity donation. They were given either one week, one month, or no deadline to respond. Professor Knowles says although the topic of the survey was about charity, the results apply to any situation where someone asks another person for help.

The study found responses to the survey were lowest for the one-month deadline and highest when no deadline was specified. No deadline and the one-week deadline led to many early responses, while a long deadline appeared to give people permission to procrastinate, and then forget. Professor Knowles wasn’t surprised to find that specifying a shorter deadline increased the chances of receiving a response compared to a longer deadline. However, he did find it interesting that they received the most responses when no deadline was specified.

“We interpret this as evidence that specifying a longer deadline, as opposed to a short deadline or no deadline at all, removes the urgency to act,” he says. “People therefore put off undertaking the task, and since they are inattentive, postponing it results in lower response rates.”

He says it is possible that not specifying a deadline might still have led participants to assume that there is an unspoken deadline. Professor Knowles hopes his research can help reduce the amount of procrastinating people do. “Many people procrastinate. They have the best intentions of helping someone out, but just do not get around to doing it.”

1. Why did Professor Knowles do the research?

A．To study more about procrastination.	B．To test the effects of deadlines.
C．To prove the existence of procrastination.	D．To advocate charity donation.

2. Which situation is least likely to lead to procrastination?

A．A crowd-funding appeal with no deadline.	B．A one-week post-disaster donation.
C．A one-month application for assistance.	D．A charity donation due on a given date.

3. Why do people procrastinate when given a long deadline?

A．They are unwilling to act.	B．They dislike the deadline.
C．They lack a sense of urgency.	D．They are too busy to remember.

4. What does Professor Knowles talk about concerning the research in the last paragraph?

A．Its concern.

B．Its limitation.

C．Its background.

D．Its significance.

【推荐2】Store owners have been inventing new tricks to get consumers into their stores and purchasing their goods. Even as we find new strategies to resist, neuroscientists (神经科学家) are employed at marketing agencies across the country to best figure out what is going through a consumer’s brain at each point in the decision process.

We consumers overspend due to the fact that we have a fear of missing the really good deal or having to pay more for the same thing and lose money. Normally, the prefrontal cortex ( 前 额皮 层 ) controls our emotional reactions to things, and keeps us from acting unreasonably by calming down our fears. But an advertiser can disturb our prefrontal cortex just by displaying flashy deal signs, encouraging it to do math on how much money we might save now by buying more of something we don’t actually need yet.

Nostalgia, that regretful affection for past events, is another strong influencer during the holiday season, and it’s shaped by emotion. Emotion—whether good or bad—enhances the formation of memories, engaging more parts of the brain. So hearing a nephew singing a carol, for instance, might reawaken memories associated with that particular song in a much more powerful way than hearing that same nephew sing another song. These kinds of memories are brought back even more easily by sensory input. This might be why we are often greeted by a sensory reminder everywhere we go in a month.

Wherever you purchase gifts, there are social influences on what you buy as well. The holidays are a time when we are especially conditioned to pay more for the label because we’re buying gifts. Receiving a brand-name gift sends the message that “this person has spent more on me, so he or she must value me more.” And it makes sense. If two things seem pretty much the same, how do I know which to choose? Humans have survived as a social species, and we have to rely on each other. So when our brains are trying to make decisions, one of the shortcuts is to assume that if a lot of other people prefer something (and higher cost is often a predictor of that), then there must be a reason.

Much of our holiday spending is driven by unplanned purchases. Plan ahead, resist the urge to purchase in the moment, make notes for comparison shopping, and if the deal is actually good, then it will hold up to inspection and you’ll feel good about your purchases later. Before you blow your budget this season, remember that your brain might be fooling you into that next purchase.

1. From Paragraph 2, we learn that ______.

A．the prefrontal cortex is the calculation center

B．the common consumers always act unreasonably

C．the sight of flashy deal signs may fill consumers with fear

D．the advertisers make consumers pay more for the same thing

2. According to Paragraph 3, which of the following can work on consumers?

A．Creating a festival atmosphere.	B．Following the current fashion.
C．Preparing more free samples.	D．Offering a bigger discount.

3. Why do we buy brand-name gifts during the holiday?

A．They are more reliable.	B．They are a sign of social status.
C．They make people feel valued.	D．They are favored by most people.

4. To avoid overspending, the author suggests we ______.

A．buy in the moment	B．reduce our budget
C．return unnecessary products	D．make a plan in advance

【推荐3】New research about male guppies, a tropical fish found in most fresh and saltwater environments published in the journal Functional Ecology suggests that male guppies exposed to high predation (捕食行动) levels often develop larger brain sizes than those living in low-risk environments. Consequently, the development of larger brain sizes among the male guppy population allows for better chances of survival under high predation conditions.

The team began its research in the southern Caribbean. They concentrated their observations on populations located in two independent rivers. In each, they collected male guppies living above and below the waterfalls. A small amount of predators lived in the waters above the waterfall, therefore the local guppy population had evolved (进化) under predation-poor conditions into a predation-poor population.

On the other hand, below the waterfall, predators were found to be increasing, making environment dangerous. Scientists noticed that male guppies located above the waterfalls often displayed on average smaller brain sizes than males living under the waterfall.

The next step was to find out if male guppies from high-predation population only had larger brains as a result of long evolutionary processes or a direct response to exposure (暴露) to risk during development. This question took the team away from the tropics and back to the laboratory, taking a sample group of guppies originating from high predation group. These were divided into two test populations. The first group was exposed to the sight and smell of a predator living in a nearby aquarium for five minutes at a time, five times a week. The other guppies served as a control group and lived in non-predatory places. The results showed that males exposed to predators have 21 per cent heavier brains than those of the control group.

Male guppies are generally more colorful than females and thus more likely to be exposed to predation threats. The increase in intellect could offer males advantages such as the ability to detect and react to danger earlier, increasing their chances of survival.

1. We learn from the passage that ________.

A．smarter fish have better chances of survival

B．guppies can’t survive in high predator conditions

C．the size of guppies changes with the environment

D．larger brains only result from long evolutionary process

2. This new research was done mainly by ________.

A．listing facts	B．analyzing data
C．making comparisons	D．explaining reasons

3. Male guppies are more easily attacked than females because of their ________.

A．appearance	B．behavior
C．life history	D．living environment

4. Which of the following proverbs reflects the findings of the research?

A．Pain past is pleasure.

B．Great hopes make great man.

C．While there is life, there is hope.

D．Storms make trees take deeper roots.

【推荐2】Nothing draws attention to your new product like using it to send fast food into space. In June, Arizona-based World View demonstrated the potential of its pioneering stratollite--a sort of mini satellite that uses a balloon to take goods into the stratosphere (平流层)--by partnering with

KFC to ferry a 5-ounce piece of fried chicken 77,000 feet into the desert sky. “We took a chicken sandwich, launched it into space for 17 hours, and when it came back, it was perfect,” says World View CEO Jane Poynter.

Poynter’s final goal is to send tourists to the edge of space, tied to the company’s balloons, and to make the final frontier more accessible for research. Stratollites are inexpensive, compact, and easy to operate, ideal for monitoring weather patterns and providing military reconnaissance （侦察） or emergency communications during natural disasters. They can also do what traditional satellites can’t: spend months above a specific location without moving.

Though Poynter did not formally train as an engineer, she has spent her career in leading space research. The British native trained her skills as a technical manager while part of Biosphere 2, an Arizona research facility built to test a self-enclosed, self-sufficient ecosystem. Its creators hoped it could one day be adapted for use in space. She spent two years in the early 1990s sealed inside with seven others, experiencing everything from oxygen failures to colleagues’ emotional breakdowns.

Poynter met her future husband, Taber MacCallum, on the project, and afterward, the couple formed Paragon Space Development. They began devising biospheres that could support plant and animal life in orbit （太空轨道）.

“We showed it’s possible for animals to live in an environment they are not used to: microgravity,” Poynter says.

In 2014, Poynter and Maccallum achieved another first. They led the engineering team that helped former Google exec Alan Eustace skydive from the edge of the stratosphere. That’s when it hit them: The balloon-parachute system they designed for Eustace could be modified for tourism and research. So they formed World View, with MacCallum serving as chief technical officer.

The company has a contract with NASA to determine if the system could someday be used to gather data on Mars. “Taking stratollites and flying them on other planets,” Poynter says, “that’s definitely a part of the big dream.”

1. Stratollites are different from traditional satellites in that they can _______.

A．stay motionless in space

B．move about in a bigger area

C．provide emergency communications

D．survive better in a situation without gravity

2. What can be inferred from the passage about Biosphere 2?

A．It was adapted from a spaceship that used to work in space.

B．It was intended to become an ideal place for space research.

C．The participants all experienced some kind of emotional breakdown.

D．The participants were isolated from the outside world for some time.

3. What does the pronoun “it” (in paragraph 5) refer to?

A．Poynter and Maccallum have helped Alan Eustace to skydive.

B．Maccallum will serve as a chief technical officer in World View.

C．The system designed for Eustace can be used for more purposes.

D．Poynter and Maccallum hope to achieve more firsts in their career.

4. What is World View’s big dream?

A．Partnering with NASA to do research on other planets.

B．Using balloons to send tourists or researchers into space.

C．Giving people more opportunities to try extreme sports in space.

D．Working with food companies to send food to astronauts in space.

【推荐3】An era in which an Alzheimer’s (阿尔兹海默) diagnosis can begin in a doctor’s office is now arriving. Advances in technologies to detect early signs of disease from a blood sample are helping doctors to identify the memory-robbing disorder more accurately and to screen participants more quickly for trials of potential treatments for the more than five million people in the U.S. afflicted with Alzheimer’s. Estimates predict that, by 2030, there will be 76 million people worldwide who will receive a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s or other dementias.

Last fall, a blood test developed by C2N Diagnostics in St Louis, Mo., became available to most of the U.S. as a routine lab test—regulated under the CMS Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) program. It has also received a CE mark as a diagnostic medical device in the European Union—indicating it has met safety, health and environmental protection standards for the region.

“The development of a blood-based test for Alzheimer’s disease is just phenomenal,” says Michelle Mielke, a neuroscientist and epidemiologist at the Mayo Clinic. “The field has been thinking about this for a very long time. It’s really been in the last couple of years that the possibility has come to fruition.”

The C2N test, called PrecivityAD, uses an analytic technique known as mass spectrometry (质谱分析技术) to detect specific types of beta-amyloid (β-淀粉样蛋白), a protein fragment that is a pathological (病态的) hallmark of disease. Beta-amyloid proteins accumulate and form plaques (斑块) visible on brain scans two decades before a patient notices memory problems. As plaques build up in the brain, levels of beta-amyloid decline in the surrounding fluid.

Such changes can be measured in spinal (脊髓的) fluid samples—and now in blood, where beta-amyloid concentrations are significantly lower. PrecivityAD is the first blood test for Alzheimer’s to be cleared for widespread use and one of a new generation of such assays that could enable early detection of the leading neurodegenerative disease—perhaps decades before the onset of the first symptoms.

1. According to the blood test developed by C2N Diagnostics, we can know that ________.

A．it can be applied in a few areas in the United States

B．it was carried out under the supervision of under the CMS’s program

C．it obtained the CE mark issued by the United States for diagnostic medical equipment

D．it has reached the safety, health and environmental protection standards of the world

2. What is MichelleMielke’s attitude towards blood test?

A．Supportive.

B．Opposed.

C．Cautious.

D．Wait-and-see.

3. Which of the following best explains “assays” underlined in the last paragraph?

A．samples

B．experiments

C．changes

D．symptoms

4. From the passage, it can be inferred that ________.

A．by 2030, more people around the world will suffer from Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia

B．as plaques accumulate in the brain, the level of beta-amyloid protein in the surrounding fluid will rise

C．Alzheimer’s patients are expected to be diagnosed decades before the initial symptoms appear

D．many blood tests for Alzheimer’s disease are under development now

【推荐1】

In the movie Jurassic World (2015), a theme park filled with dinosaurs, was brought back from extinction through cloning.

Although the film is of course fictional, the methods used in it to bring animals back from the dead may soon become reality.

Scientists from Harvard University in the US are currently working on resurrecting the woolly mammoth, a mammal that became extinct around 4,000 years ago.

However, it wouldn’t be an exact copy of the hairy beast. “Our aim is to produce a hybrid elephant-mammoth embryo,” Professor George Church, head of the team of scientists, told The Guardian.

“Actually, it would be more like an elephant with a number of mammoth traits. We’re not there yet, but it could happen in a couple of years.”

The team is hoping to make a “mammophant” — a mix between an elephant and a mammoth. It would be like a regular elephant but have features from the mammoth that would make it more adaptable to cold weather.

So why go through all the effort and expense to bring back an animal that died out thousands of years ago? The answer lies in climate change.

It’s hoped that the creatures will stop frost in the world’s tundra (冻土带) from melting and releasing huge amounts of harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

“Mammoths used to keep the tundra from thawing (融化) by punching through snow and allowing cold air to come in,” said Church. “In the summer, they knocked down trees and helped the grass grow.” Church and his team are attempting to mix mammoth DNA, recovered from frozen samples of the animal found in Siberia, with that of the Asian elephant, which is its closest relative.

“So far, scientists have managed to incorporate traits of the mammoth into elephant DNA. In a few years, they hope to make an embryo, but that’s a long way from creating a viable embryo,” Popular Science magazine wrote.

Although we may not be seeing woolly mammoths at the zoo any time in the near future, it’s still exciting to know that there is still the possibility of a real Jurassic Park someday, however tiny that possibility may be.

1. The underlined word “resurrecting” in Paragraph 3 probably means__________.

A．making something adaptable to current condition

B．studying a sample of something

C．bringing something back to life

D．producing a hybrid embryo of something

2. What would a mammophant look like according to the text?

A．It would be a combination of elephant, mammoth and dinosaur.

B．It would be an exact copy of the woolly mammoth with long hair.

C．It would look like a normal elephant but also share some mammoth traits.

D．It would be like a bigger sized elephant with small ears and short hair.

3. What is the main purpose of producing mammophants according to Church?

A．To improve biodiversity.

B．To help fight global warming.

C．To remove frost in the tundra.

D．To help grass grow in the tundra.

4. What can be concluded from the text?

A．The media holds a cautious attitude toward the mammophant program.

B．A hybrid elephant-mammoth embryo is likely to be produced within two years

C．The method used to produce mammophants was borrowed from the movie Jurassic World

D．Scientists still have a long way to fulfill the goals of the mammophant program.

【推荐2】Doctors in hospital emergency rooms often see accidental poisonings. A frightened parent arrives with a child who swallowed a cleaning liquid. Or perhaps the harmful substance is a medicine. Or it might be a chemical product meant to kill insects. These are common causes of accidental poisoning.

In cases like this, seek medical help as soon as possible. Save the container of whatever caused the poisoning. And look on the container for information about anything that stops the effects of the poison. Save anything expelled from the mouth of the victim. That way, doctors can examine it.

Millions of people know a way to save a person who is choking on something trapped in the throat. The method is commonly known as the Heimlich Maneuver or abdominal thrusts(腹部按压), which you can do by getting directly behind a sitting or standing person. Put your arms around the victim’s waist. Close one hand to form a ball. Place it over the upper part of the stomach, below the ribs. Place the other hand on top. Then push forcefully inward and upward. Repeat the abdominal thrusts until the object is expelled from the mouth. For someone who is pregnant or very fat, place your hands a little higher than with normal abdominal thrusts.

Red Cross experts say taking these steps can save many lives. But they also warn that abdominal thrusts are not for people who have almost drowned. They say use of the method could delay other ways to re-start breathing in the victim. Abdominal thrusts should be used only in cases where a near-drowning victim is choking on an object.

To learn more about first aid, ask a hospital or organization like a Red Cross or Red Crescent Society for information. There may be training classes offered in your area.

1. According to the first paragraph, which of the following is NOT the common cause of accidental poisonings?

A．A harmful medicine

B．A cleaning liquid

C．Poisonous insects

D．Dangerous pesticide(杀虫剂)

2. The underlined word “expelled” in paragraph 2 can be replaced by “_________ ”.

A．coming out	B．taking up
C．going away	D．getting down

3. Why abdominal thrusts are not for people who have almost drowned?

A．Because people are unwilling to attempt rescue efforts

B．Because it is hard to perform

C．Because it is no need to do so

D．Because it could hold up other ways to re-start breathing in the victim

4. What is the author’s purpose in writing this text?

A．To promote medical research

B．To share some knowledge about first aid

C．To show how to perform abdominal thrusts

D．To help people deal with accidental poisoning

【推荐3】Harry is a vehicle called a pod—in other words, something like a car. But Harry has no steering wheel or brake pedal. Harry does not even have a driver. Yet Harry is carrying passengers around London for the next few weeks.

Harry is part of an experiment called GATEway that is testing how people react to driverless vehicles. The name GATEway is short for Greenwich Automated Transport Environment. The experiment aims to help cities prepare for the future of transportation. The GATEway experiment does not test new technology. Instead, it tests the way existing technology can work in society.

The pod operates in an area of London called Greenwich, home of time and navigation museums. Other places where pods will be tested are Coventry, Milton, Keynes and Bristol. The pods run using sensors and a 3D map of the area. A safety operator rides along to take control in case of an emergency.

GATEway is intended to see how pedestrians and cyclists may adapt to driverless vehicles. Harry holds up to four people (three passengers and a safety operator) and can travel at speeds up to 16km/h. It is being tested in Greenwich on pedestrian paths, but not on roads with other vehicles.

If you are in Greenwich during the next few weeks you may see Harry, but you cannot ride in it during the trial. Over 5,000 people applied to be a passenger in Harry but only about 100 were chosen.

You can, however, ride in a similar pod at Heathrow Airport in London. The Heathrow pods run on tracks so they are not being tested with pedestrians, cyclists or other drivers. If the trials are successful, the first pods could be operational on the roads of the UK in 2020.

1. What’s the purpose of the GATEway?

A．To settle traffic problems in cities.

B．To test a new transportation technology.

C．To prepare cities for future transportation.

D．To draw people’s interest in transportation.

2. What will happen if Harry meets with dangerous situation?

A．The passengers will help.

B．It will deal with it by itself.

C．An accident will take place.

D．A human driver will take it over.

3. Why is Harry running on the sidewalk?

A．To test the response of people walking or on a bike.

B．To avoid disturbing other vehicles on the street.

C．To prevent it from running at a high speed.

D．To watch pedestrians and cyclists go safely.

4. What’s people’s attitude towards Harry?

A．Fearful.	B．Positive.
C．Doubtful.	D．Grateful.